Did I tell you about the Santa we visited this year? He was in this really dead strip mall in Poughkeepsie. His North Pole setup inhabited a Hallmark store that recently went out of business. He had a few decorations and wrapped cartons to make it feel sort of festive. And he was a one man shop – pretty cool actually. He had his digital camera all set up on a tripod, and he triggered it with a remote. When we paid, he swiped our credit card through an attachment on his iPhone. Santa has all the coolest new gadgets.

He was a good looking Santa too. No hat, but real hair and real beard and all around very convincing look. And he spent a lot of time talking to the kids, chatting with them, telling them to behave and such. He wasn’t a real “Ho HO HO” sort of Santa. He was way more mellow.

Waaaaay more mellow in fact. I mean, no freak vibes, and probably not running a hydroponics setup in the back room or anything, but if you told me Santa hit the chronic before starting his day at the satellite Poughkeepsie office of North Pole, Inc. I would totally believe.